On Wednesday, one of Puerto Rico’s government agencies failed to transfer a debt payment of $93.7 million to a trustee. Failure to make an additional payment on August 1st could constitute a default. Now, if this same scenario were happening in a state, that agency would probably restructure what they owe — just look at the city of Detroit last year. But Puerto Rican agencies can’t do that. Steven Walt, a bankruptcy law specialist at the University of Virginia Law School, says even if Puerto Rican agencies continue to miss payments, bond holders aren't in a...
Toddlers who spend a lot of time in front of a TV may be at greater risk of being bullied later in life, a new study suggests. Patrick Tolan, director of the Youth-Nex Center at the University of Virginia and a professor in UVA's Curry School of Education, put it this way: "It's impressive that you can see long-term effects of TV watching. But it's not clear whether TV watching is directly related to victimization, or to a lot of poor performance and poor functioning and victimization is just one aspect of that."
Pluto’s large moon Charon is almost as enigmatic as Pluto. As NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft helps unveil the underworldly moon, most of its features are turning out to be more puzzling than expected. So far, scientists have no idea what’s going on with the Charonian peak. But, says team member Anne Verbiscer, it does look similar to a feature on another of the solar system’s most curious worlds: The two-toned moon Iapetus, which orbits Saturn. “I find both of them fascinating,” says Verbiscer, of the University of Virginia.
NASA says its New Horizons spacecraft will complete a historic flyby of Pluto today, making its closest pass over the small, icy world at 7:49 this morning. A UVA researcher is on the team assessing this first glimpse. Alan Howard is a planetary geologist with a front-row seat to history in the making.
Hampton Roads' members of Congress are digesting President Obama's new nuclear pact with Iran, and largely withholding final judgment while harboring worries about the long-negotiated treaty. They have two months to make up their minds, and the president has promised a hard sell between now and planned congressional votes. University of Virginia Professor Melvyn Leffler, who has written extensively about U.S. foreign relations with some focus on the Bush and Obama years, made the same point Thursday: This wasn't just about America's willingness to hold its own sanctions over Ir...
The case of the London Whale has ended — with a whimper. Last week, Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority took the unusual step of announcing that it was dropping its investigation and would take no further action against Bruno Iksil, whose risky bets on complex derivative contracts ended up costing JPMorgan Chase $6.2 billion in losses. “It’s laughable, really, that so many banks have been prosecuted and it’s always the fault of a rogue trader, or an isolated trading desk,” said Brandon L. Garrett, a law professor at the University of Virginia and author of...
Being on the losing side of a revolution can be very dangerous for churches, according to Douglas Laycock, professor of law and religious studies at the University of Virginia. He argues that by continuing to fight on the losing side of the sexual revolution, churches endanger their religious liberty. He calls on churches to defend their religious liberty but not to try to impose their sexual values on others.
Apple is known for its strict curation of its App Store, but that's nothing compared to the labyrinth Shaun Masavage had to navigate to get his miniature breathalyzer DrinkMate approved by the company for use with the iPhone. Masavage has spent the last year working on an iPhone version of DrinkMate that could get Apple's approval, after successfully raising over $40,000 last year on Kickstarter to build an Android version. The Kickstarter for the iPhone version launched on Sunday and more than 500 backers have helped the University of Virginia alum pass i...
As features editor for Zimbabwe’s largest daily paper, The Herald, in the capital city of Harare, Roselyne Sachiti doesn’t shy away from tough stories, even if they place her in danger. The 33-year-old journalist has gone undercover to investigate the smuggling of clothes into her country, an episode that found her temporarily locked in a room in a smuggler’s house. She’s snuck across Zimbabwe’s border to report on the dangers facing women on such journeys, spotting evidence of violence and sexual assault along the way. This summer, Sachiti is in Charlottesville, ...
Private conversations last December between University of Virginia students and U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine led to the Senate passing legislation Thursday that would spur high schools to teach students how to deal with sexual harassment or violence.
The University of Virginia has hired Alice J. Raucher as its new architect. Raucher — who currently heads the Design Steering Team for Yale University’s Office of Facilities, Planning, Construction and Renovation — is expected to start at UVa in September. She will replace current architect David J. Neuman, who announced last year he would leave his post to start a private practice in San Francisco. Neuman held his position for 11 years.
Look at racial maps of many American cities, and stark boundaries between neighboring black and white communities frequently denote an impassable railroad or highway, or a historically uncrossable avenue. You can see echoes of that pattern in Pittsburgh today on this map drawn using the racial dot map created by Dustin Cable at the University of Virginia's Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service.
From the outside, Wednesday's meeting made it look like a calculating Texas Sen. Ted Cruz was actually betting against Donald Trump -- cozying up to him in hopes of earning an endorsement if Trump's campaign ultimately collapses. "Politically this is a smart move by Cruz. While no one can know for sure, there is a fair to good chance Trump will drop out or cease active campaigning at some point," said Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.
Transfer rates among U.S. college students are at a high, with a recent report showing that more than one third of students choose to transfer universities at least once during their academic careers. Farrell McGurl, a University of South Carolina (USC) transfer who enrolled at the University of Virginia (UVA) her second year, found that the process was relatively straightforward. “I was fortunate with the people that helped me,” McGurl says. And fellow UVA transfer Michelle Gahagan agrees.
The Hwa Chong Institute (HCI) is an elite high school in Singapore that enrols only the best-performing students and then gives them access to advanced equipment, including an atomic force microscope and cell-culture incubators. The tools would be the envy of many a university, but to director of studies Har Hui Peng, that is not enough. She has always wanted to give her students an extra challenge, and a flavour of doing science in an interconnected world. She got her chance a decade ago thanks to a lucky encounter with George Wolfe, a US educator who told her that he was setting up the...
The University of Virginia has just been awarded the Capital One Cup all sports championships for men’s sports. The award was presented by Chris Long an ex-football player for UVa.
Phenomenal new research at the University of Virginia has discovered a previously hidden structure in the brain that links it to the immune system. This breaking news changes the way scientists and doctors look at and study the brain, and will replace decades of medical textbook teaching materials which state that these vessels do not exist. Additionally, this discovery literally redirects the way neurological diseases, including Alzheimer’s, autism and multiple Sclerosis are studied and treated from this moment forward.
The University of Virginia and the U.S. Army have joined forces to address the defense needs of the nation. Together they will tap into resources involving new technology and new research.
These were the first words out of the mouth of Matthew B. Crawford, the author of the newly published “The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming an Individual in an Age of Distraction,” as he stood at the top of the west ramp. Mr. Crawford is a senior fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia. “It makes me feel like I’m a citizen of something important,” Mr. Crawford said. “It makes me feel as I imagine a citizen of Rome might have felt. I feel elevated.”
Limberbutt McCubbins is running for president, and the five-year-old feline isn’t pussyfooting around. Besides launching a campaign website and accompanying social media accounts, Limberbutt has caught some media attention (though some seem unaware of his animal nature), nabbed an endorsement, and even inspired a line of campaign swag. Does that mean cats are exempt from the age requirement? Probably not, said Michael Gilbert, a professor of election law at the University of Virginia. "In jest, the expression of one thing (persons mu...